CotV Chapter Sixteen (Season Finale)
Pickaxes swung and houses broke. Together we harvested the nearest house and used the materials to build a bridge across the chasm. It wasn't a difficult task. We ran ahead, and there it was, the Reskimit Tower, almost flush against the city wall. We stood on a ledge. It was obvious there had once been a fence here. In front of us stretched a large, rectangular flat surface of cobblestone with houses on both sides. The plain acted more like a border or very large sidewalk, with a one-block deep indentation taking up most of the area. "What is that?" I asked her. "It used to be a pool," she answered. "A majestic man-made lake that spread out in front of the tower." For of course, at the other end of the large area the two large sidewalks converged into an inclined pathway up to the tower. The two sections were like mirrors of each other, extending far up to the sky and ending on a sharp corner caused by the outside curve. It was amazingly impressing up close. The sky reddened in front of us. Day was breaking, slowly but surely. We had done it. "All right, we just need to climb up the tower. Once we get to the fifteenth floor one of the windows is broken out. There's a sky path from there to the wall. Once we get there, we can climb down through a hole in the top of the wall. That will lead to the outside." she explained to me. "Wait, how do you know that?" I asked incredulously. "Because I built it," she responded with a heavy sigh. "Now let's get out of here." ssssSSSS... I turned around quickly at the sound. TNT. Right behind us. I yelled, and grabbed her arm, jumping off the ledge. The TNT exploded, propelling us far forward into the former pool. We landed hard on the rough cobblestone. I turned and stood, looking up at where we were. On a rooftop stood the adventurer, holding his TNT gun in one hand and a strangely-shaped sword in his other. On every street that connected to the cobblestone area, corrupt zombies shambled out of the cover of roofs into the slowly lightening sky. "Stephen!" he yelled out. "Heretic! You betray your own and stand with the next iteration! You are not one of them!" "What is he talking about?" Alex asked me, standing up. "No clue," I said. "Hey griefer, what are you talking about?" He jumped down to the sidewalk, brandishing his sword. The zombies stopped moving, standing still on the outside of the cobblestone paths, watching. "It doesn't matter. Whatever you did before, you are now the newest piece of the Omnibrine. And because of that, if I am to destroy it, you must die." He drew his sword and charged. I leapt at him, countering his slash with my own. He attacked again, and I countered. I slashed back and hit him. He returned with a slice cleanly down my arm. As it went through me I felt something break inside me. I jumped back, blocking with my sword to avoid incoming strikes. "Steve, look out!" Alex yelled. "That's a Deconstruct Sword! If you die by that blade, you won't respawn!" "Well, I was hoping to save my ace in the sleeve until later, but of course you would figure it out. Intelligent all the way, aren't you?" he said, mockingly. "My business is not with you. Stephen must be destroyed in order for the Omnibrine to be killed." "I don't know what this Omnibrine thing is, and I don't really care," I spat back at him. "Leave now, or we will fight you and we won't be afraid to kill you." "There are other ways to destroy a player," Alex yelled at him. "I know a few myself." "It doesn't matter. I'm willing to risk permadeath now. I can't let the Omnibrine come to fruition." The air around us rumbled, like an earthquake without the ground shaking. A deep voice boomed out. Too... late... "No!" he yelled, his voice slightly frantic, as he looked up at the Reskimit Tower. We both turned to it as well. In between the two spires, a white orb of energy glowed. It expanded out, runes spinning around the center. You are already... doomed! The adventurer screamed a battle cry from behind me, and I heard his quick footsteps. I turned quickly, just in time to see him jump and slash at me. I cried out as the Deconstruct Sword sliced across my left eye, and I fell to the ground. I heard a sword clash with his before he could attack again. Alex. A whooshing noise echoed out from the Reskimit Tower, and we all stopped fighting and looked up at it. The orb was morphing, and an emergence was coming out of it. The sun rose behind and its light pierced through the center of the sphere, gleaming out across the cobble. Slowly the square entity, forming up into the sky, took form, and smiled a sharp-toothed smile while gazing down at us with its blank white eyes. The eight-face mesh was completely in black and white, pieces of faces stitched together. It laughed out, and spoke. "You have lost! I am here, finally, I am real!" As he said the words, the faces began to gain their color, each forming a separate skin tone, hair, and eye color. "The greatest player! Because I am all of you!" As it boasted the words, a pain struck through my head, and the static around my vision rushed back in. I saw things, and the ones and zeroes made up my entire field of vision in front of me. But there was something else, a player, covered in red glittering armor, his skin completely black with two red pinpricks of eyes staring out at me. Muriminus. I knew it had to be him. And he... was the one... giving me knowledge. He reached out his arm, and across the field of code blue lightning struck, sending ripples and shockwaves out through the numbers. "My avatar..." Visions flashed into my mind. Alex swinging her sword at me, laughing with Jennifer, white eyes in front of me, and pounding pain through my head. She is evil. She is dark. She is no friend of yours. Twisted memories, thoughts changing, breaking apart, and I realized it was true. It was all well-disguised hate. But I remembered, deep in my mind, the kiss. She kissed me. His dark manipulations of my memories were overtaken by my own, true memory, her lips pressed against mine, her body warm, our combined energy healing all our wounds. Her looks of admiration, how she only cared for my well-being when she thought she would die. She doesn't hate me... she... loves... me! "No!" I yelled, and broke back into the real world, the illusion shattering. All that remained were two purple chains locked around my arms, holding me back, extending up into a dark violet warp in the sky. Slowly but surely they became real, and the one holding them, standing in the mouth of the warp, was the corrupted being himself, Muriminus. "Go!" he yelled out, his voice layered over itself. "Kill them, all of them!" I pulled bodily forward, straining the chains he held. The adventurer ran forth and struck at the chains with the Deconstruct Sword with all his might, but it did nothing. They held fast. The being in the air, the Omnibrine, looked down at Muriminus. "What are you?" "I am the future king of all dimensions," Muriminus responded, "what are you?" "Fool and liar," the Omnibrine declared, "I am all dimensions!" "Not for long you aren't!" the adventurer yelled, drawing a bow from his armor. "Spirit Touch!" The glowing, enchanted arrow shot true and pierced through the center of the Omnibrine, directly in between all eight of its faces. But it wasn't a regular arrow. It was a Motion Arrow, the same kind he had used on our ender pearl. The thing screamed out, and began to condense. Each face segment tore from the others and glowed as it changed shape, forming into a small white orb of energy. As soon as this happened, six of them flew out in random directions, flying to somewhere else entirely. Two of them stayed. "Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. What did I do? What did I do?" the adventurer cried. The two orbs began to slowly gravitate towards the ground in front of us. All were silent as the two orbs descended to the ground, and formed into human shapes. They weren't just any, though. They were us. Me and Alex. Exact carbon copies, standing like uncontrolled puppets with their heads facing down. The zombies around the edge of the cobblestone ceased their trance and began walking forward to us. The two copies raised their heads, looking at us. Both of them had pure white eyes. There was pure silence for two seconds, then they charged, malicious intent shining through their demonic copied faces. Alex stepped in to face my clone and the adventurer jumped to face the Alex clone. It is, of course, basic knowledge never to fight a clone of yourself. I pulled as hard as I could on the chains, but I couldn't break them. My clone, fighting with Alex on my right, was healing from its wounds as fast as she could deal them, and Alex's clone on my left had produced a sword made of what appeared to be lightning to fight the adventurer's Deconstruct Sword. The corrupt zombies closed in around us, ignoring the clones and attacking the players. Then I realized I could help. I took out my sword and ran, parallel to the void's opening, to my left, moving inwards to give myself slack on the chain. I jumped at the zombies that were intervening with the adventurer, and slashed at them, fighting very competently (in my opinion) for someone with only one eye. They focused their efforts on me, making me an ample distraction to fight them all. Muriminus tried pulling back on my chains, but we were equals in physical strength, and I kept him from dragging me back, also keeping the zombies at bay. The adventurer took a jump to the side, and a full-on brute-strength strike with his Deconstruct Sword directly into the lightning sword, which shattered into multiple pieces. He followed up with a direct stab and a slice, which the clone couldn't heal. She screeched and ran, jumping high up onto a roof and running out of sight. The adventurer began to fight the zombies as well, so I sprinted to the other side of the fight to help Alex, being sure to run as far outward as I could in order not to give Muriminus any chain to pull back. "Run to the center!" I told her as I went past to combat the zombies. "You cannot defy me!" Muriminus yelled, trying once more to pull in the chains. "Watch me!" I snapped, and began fighting, my sword swinging and decapitating the slow-moving zombies. They pushed us back on each side toward the center, where Alex fought my clone. "I will not give up my quest now! You will be my avatar!" Muriminus shouted. "Aelas Avian!" he cried, and the dimensional warp changed shape, beginning to suck in air. I slowly lifted off the ground along with Alex, the adventurer, my clone, and the zombies. We moved towards the portal, and I was floating away from Alex and the adventurer. "No!" I cried out, reaching for someone, but I was too far out of reach. Muriminus pulled on my chains, reining me in towards the portal. The zombies began to float through the edges of the portal, falling into Muriminus' void. Unfazed, he continued pulling the chains in. Alex, floating slowly away from my clone, looked around for anything she could do, and then an idea struck. I could almost see the light bulb above her head. She grabbed my clones' arms quickly, surprising him, and with all her strength swung him around, throwing him directly above me into the warp. He slammed into Muriminus full-force. Both of them fell down, disrupting Muriminus' spell. I felt the powerful pulling wind cease. The warp snapped shut, severing the chains, and everyone fell to the ground. All of the zombies died upon impact, and all three of us hit the ground at once. The adventurer's Deconstruct Sword broke into multiple pieces and dissipated into the air, as did the chains, slowly fading away link by link until the shackles around my arms were all that were left, and they too vanished. "That... was Muriminus," I gasped to Alex. "I always thought he was still alive, but... I never expected to see him in person," she said. "Or... fight him!" The adventurer stood, and walked over to me as I got up. We stood facing each other, silent, for a long time. I kept hold of my sword. He looked... regretful? We had barely even become enemies, and then we fought on the same side against a common evil. Was he a bad person... or just misguided? "Okay, I get that I tried to kill you and all, but... the Omnibrine. It's active now and its pieces are spread out across the world. We need to find it and kill it, and I need your help," he admitted, awkwardly. I was incredulous. "You... you tried to kill me! You cut one of my eyes! I'm half-blind! I'm in serious pain at this very moment because of you!" Serious emotional hit. He didn't like remembering that. "I've been chasing the Omnibrine for a long time, trying to keep it from manifesting. I failed at every turn. You were literally the last piece of it. If I killed you it would be defeated, and that was the only choice I had left. I was trying to stop a massive evil from entering the world, and I..." he sighed. "I couldn't afford to have second thoughts. I didn't... I didn't want to, I wasn't killing you for any... fun or any enjoyment. I was doing it because I had to. So, please. You have to forgive me. I need you and your players. We might be the only thing keeping all dimensions from being destroyed, and we can't do that if we're enemies." There were no mobs. The sun shined over the Corruptis, the orange daylight glowing above us. Somewhere nearby was one-eighth of a demon. What used to be a shining energy orb between two towers was now a blackened and condensed core. Nothing came to disturb us. Nothing else mattered. Alex, the adventurer, and I were all that were left in the center of the desolate city. "I forgive you." End of Season One Category:Sad's Fanon Category:CotV